The Benign Tree

poetry by Richard Kovac

The Book

Richard Kovac once again takes the reader on his journey. Here is a book of poetry by a poet who combines the literate with the lived. The Benign Tree is a work of real poetry from a man who has lived it to write about it. These poems are straight forward and grounded in the contemporary and common images of the day. McDonald's might be in one poem, Mickey and Mini in another, each will speak to us. This is a first hand view of living by a poet who now, as he gets older, gives us real insight into life, his life, and what that life has become. It is not always comfortable, it is not always perfect, but it is always real and it is always full of deep understanding and real beauty. From Morning Wake-up: Smoke / and coffee / make morning / around here. As it does for so many. Read this book with care and with a solemn eye.

The Author

Richard has been a member of the peace movement since 1965, in particular the War Resisters League and the Catholic Worker Movement founded by Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day. He is also in MENSA and its companion organization Intertel. In 1988 he obtained listing in the Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. During most of l984-88 he functioned as a street person and street poet, mostly in Milwaukee and Waukegan. He published a chapbook based on his experience called, Down and Out in Waukegan and Wisconsin. His full length books, Untitled and Wheels within Wheels, were published by PM Books, an imprint of Poetic Matrix Press, in 2008 and 2011. The author and his family live in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.